Amazon to launch streaming music service on Prime – Spotify thought to be looking nervously over its shoulder

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Amazon is said to be working on a streaming music service to add to its portfolio of services under the “Prime” brand – a move which is sure to make rivals nervous.

According to Buzzfeed the music service will launch for Prime subscribers in either June or July – joining the recently beefed up Prime line-up free one-day delivery, free Kindle books and free on-demand video from Amazon Instant Video.

The move will no-doubt frighten existing music streaming services like Spotify, Rdio and Apple’s newly acquired Beats Music. Amazon, after all, is no plucky start-up: Prime already apparently has 20 million users who are paying £79/year for the services… which when added together are arguably more affordable than individual rival services, like Spotify and Netflix.

There is one difference though: Apparently Amazon’s service will limit access to new music – only songs older than six months will be playable on the new service – presumably because the company thinks that it can still do good business selling individual MP3s on new stuff.

We’ll let you know when we know something concrete. In the meantime, I’m going to do a little dance and point out how I called it back in February.